Apple Inc.’s product distribution system in US and UK

By on August 21, 2012

Apple Inc. is a multinational company having its origin in US. It manufactures and markets consumer electronics, computer software and personal computers. As per the statistics of August 2010, Apple Inc. carries out its operations in 10 countries. It operates through its 301 retail outlets and an online business portal from where customers can buy the requisite products. Apple Inc. has evolved as one of the largest companies across the globe and producer of most innovative technology. It even even outdid Microsoft (Shetty, 2011).

Channel distribution of Apple Inc.

Marketing managers consider production facilities before squaring down to a particular distribution model. Apple Inc. is a company known for the employment of multiple distribution channels for reaching out to its customers. Apple Inc. has established different production plants to cater to the needs of its consumers in different parts of the world. Its plant in California caters to the needs of the US. Its European plant caters the European customers. And its Asian customers are served through the plant based at Singapore. This strategy helped the company to optimize its distribution cost (Madura, 2006).

In the initial years, Apple Inc. wanted to control the entire distribution of products by itself. However, gradually, they started adding channel partners like large scale retailers like AT&T, Wal-Mart and Best Buy. Apple Inc. has an advantageous chain of exclusive retail outlets that allows direct approach to the customers (Shetty, 2011). It has a reasonable amalgamation of distribution channels like online store, retail outlets and tie ups with wholesalers. Apple Inc. emphasizes a lot on customer’s buying experience. Therefore, it tries to cater to major markets by way of either a company owned retail outlet or tie-up with a major wholesaler in the region. The growth of e-commerce and online shopping trends allows the consumer to have the freedom of shopping at any time and from anywhere. This helped Apple Inc. to reach out to customers of the markets where the physical facility of the company or channel partners is not available.  This even helped Apple Inc. to save cost of maintenance of physical store. However, the company needs to take care of shipment, taxes and import duties and formalities for its online store (Magal and Word, 2011).

Apple Inc.

Apple is currently considered as an innovator with its products like iPod, iPad, iPhone and MacBook highly popular with the technology savvy people across the globe. The company has been successful in handling its distribution channels not only in the US or UK but also across the continents.

References

Discuss

2 thoughts on “Apple Inc.’s product distribution system in US and UK”